Ranting away...: To lose life and hope

Ranting away...

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

To lose life and hope

Mention the word "death" and what immediately comes to my mind is the sad image of my paternal grandmother: my lola. She died of bone cancer.

I was about to write: "You could just imagine the pain she went through..." but that wouldn't be quite right. You could never imagine all that she had been through. Even I, who witnessed some of her suffering, could never fully comprehend the literally bone-crushing pain that wracked her thin frame and kept her bed-ridden... that deprived her of sleep at night, and during the elusive times when sleep would come, caused her to cry out and become delirious.

I remember my parents and my aunt recounting how lola would call out the names of some of her long - dead family members and relatives and mumble about them in her sleep, as if they were coming to fetch her, during her last stay at the hospital. She had been in and out of the hospital before that. Her health had already been deteriorating then.

I shivered at hearing those stories. I never was able to muster enough courage (or compassion?) to visit her often during the times she had been admitted. I made excuses for myself, reasoning out that I was a student who had classes to attend everyday. But I knew I was just afraid - afraid to see her in her awful condition, in such pain... afraid of my own helplessness, knowing there was nothing I could do for her. If only there was something I could do, to ease her pain, if just a bit. I prayed for her, but I knew that her condition was beyond cure.
What was I to do? Hope against hope?

To see life deteriorate - literally wasting away - before your very eyes is like having your heart crushed. To see a life lost just tears your heart in two.

I was in my early teens when I was experienced the acrid taste of death in the family I knew. One of the hardest things I had to come to terms with was the fact that death is bitterly irreversible.

The person you knew, lived with, and loved is gone for good. It was then that I understood the unspeakable pain of loss, of losing someone forever. No one could really put words to it. The condolences often sounded empty.

Why do I write about death? I don't know. I just remembered lola.
And I've long wanted to write about her death... to face the ghosts of the past, the feelings (or the lack of it) that I struggled with during those dark times, particularly the feeling that I should have done something more for her... to have release... and closure.

I won't give you the usual platitudes of "treasuring life and loved ones" and "making the most of every second of it... of every moment spent with them."
Rather, I merely long for the day when the irreversible will ultimately be reversed. When death will have no power over us. When sadness and suffering will cease. When God will put an end to all the misery and pain. When all the bad things will be made right.
When the nightmare will finally come to an end.

I look forward to that day. Who wouldn't? I yearn for it because I have trouble in dealing with all the hurt that all people around me have to go through everyday. I want to give them a hope, but I hold back.

And I realize that, in spite of the years that have passed me by, I'm still the same young teenager that was helpless before the sight of someone suffering - of his lola suffering. I guess nothing's changed much.

At least, not yet. But that day of change, however, will indeed come. I refuse to believe that God would allow humanity to suffer in vain. What difference then, is there between hell and earth? No, God is too good to allow that.

Is this another case of "hoping even when there's no hope?" Another one of my foolish notions?
I don't think so. If there was no hope at all, then why go on with the drudgery of existence? Why choose to go on living anymore? Why not end it, and be done with it?

But as for me, I will hold on to that hope. I know that that day of great change will come. God speed its coming. For His own glory. For those who are suffering and in pain. For you. For myself. Even for lola.
Yes, for all of us.

Labels: the walk

posted by remrick @ 4:25 PM

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